Starting an eBay business may at first seems like an easy task, but when you set out to actually do it you are faced with the first and hardest question you need to answer — “What do I sell?”

Sadly, most people can’t answer this question and soon find their business only existing in their head. Others will grab the first thing they see on sale, buy it up and pray that they can sell it at a profit. Most of these people lose money, and again, their business winds up as just an illusion.

You have to start out on the right track from the very beginning if you want to make a successful career on eBay. Finding the right products to sell is the first step.

First, you need to know what categories are the most popular and profitable. Broadly speaking the best categories of things to sell on eBay are as follows:

Electronics

Clothes

Books

Collectibles

Understanding what segments of those categories will have the most buyers and offer you the best opportunity to make a profit is what will make you successful. Rather than just buying anything in that category, be choosy and only pick the best items in each category. The best things to sell on eBay are often in niche segments within a category.

Collectibles: Coins, stamps, comic books, sports memorabilia, pretty much anything that can be identified and has a published price guide that is updated yearly.

Where do you get all this stuff?

The obvious first place to look for things to sell on eBay is your garage or attic. You can clear out space for new stock and get valuable experience selling on eBay. One of the most important things you’ll accomplish in this initial phase is the building of your eBay feedback rating. If you try to sell a big ticket item with a feedback score below 25, you’re going to lose money.

Don’t rush this phase, and try to become rich. Your main focus is a high volume of transactions and good customer service. List these first items at a price less than what you think you want for them and when they do sell, ship them out the same day if possible.

Now that your garage is empty and you have feedback rating over 25, it’s time to go shopping. Your first stop should be at your local discount clothing store. Places like Ross or Nordstrom’s Rack sell designer label clothes for a fraction of the retail value.

Only buy women’s clothes. You want basics, something a woman needs frequently for work, or ultra-trendy, something that everyone has to have, but can’t necessarily afford. It’s easier to go with the basics.

Warning: Never try to sell knockoffs on eBay. You will get a lifetime ban. Additionally, they can ban anyone at your address or IP, for life. While eBay itself is not that vigilant on watching out for copyright or trademark infringement, the corporate lawyers are. There are people whose sole job is to surf eBay looking for infringing items and notifying eBay.

Also, never use someone else’s pictures, either from a listing or anywhere on the web. If you didn’t take the picture yourself, someone else holds the copyright. A seller can get you banned from eBay if they report you as using their listing images, or even copying their html or text from a listing.

Garage sales are a good place for children’s clothes. You can often get a discount if you show up early and offer to buy all their children’s clothes at once. Children’s books can easily be found at garage sales to, in varying conditions. It’s possible to find collectibles here too, but they are often overpriced or in very bad condition. Most people have the idea that if it looks old, it must be worth a lot and aren’t very open to negotiating a lower price.

Local thrift stores have a wide selection of children’s clothes and used books, often for pennies on the dollar. Make it a habit to stop by once a week to each one in your area.

You can find things to sell on eBay itself. It takes some work and know-how, but searching for misspelled listings or items listed in the wrong category can often lead to some very good finds.

If you want to sell collectables, make sure it is something that you are actually interested in yourself. If you don’t know the details of that market, it’s easy to lose a lot of money. Buy every relevant price guide for your chosen hobby (on eBay of course), select a niche segment of that market and learn as much as you can about it. This works well if you live in or near a large metropolitan area that will have shops, fairs, and events specific to that collectable market.

With collectables and books, you must be able to speak the language. Each hobby has its own terminology and if you don’t know it, people won’t trust you. Even if you are selling an item at a fair price, if it sounds like you don’t know what you’re talking about – somehow, it seems overpriced and people won’t want to buy from you.

A good place to find your chosen collectibles are at events tailored to that hobby. Most events will have a listing of sellers at the event, along with their specialty. DON’T go to the person who specializes in your particular niche. Try someone who is more interested in the complete opposite. Often they will have items you are looking for and not know the value of them. Sometimes they might over-value the item, but most often, they list it cheap just to get it out of their inventory.

Books can be excellent things to sell on eBay. A good first edition book can be worth a lot of money. Usually they can only be bought from someone who knows what they have, but I have had a lot of luck at discount used book stores and at larger used book fairs. Again, you have to know what you’re looking for and what you’re talking about or you could overpay for something worth only a few dollars.

Non-fiction books in niche markets sell excellent. How-to books will always be sellers. Make sure you don’t go to broad with the categories or you might have too much competition to make a profit. For example: “How to Make an Adirondack chair,” is better than “Woodworking at Home.” Home repair guides, sports training manuals, self-help books, are all good things to sell on eBay. All books should be listed for the longest auction time that you can, or be placed in an eBay store.

A note on selling: Don’t try to squeeze every last cent out of a sale. Leave a little bit on the table so that the buyer has a good feeling about their purchase and in turn, you, the seller. If you build a reputation for quality items at a good price, you’ll have a long future as an eBay seller.

Make sure the buyer feels that they got a great deal. Always try to create a higher perceived value for your items than what you are selling it for. With books, clothes, and some collectibles, putting items in a set and then “discounting” the price will often get you a better profit than trying to sell each item individually.

Wholesale / Drop Shipping

Last but not least, we have the most mysterious method of acquiring things to sell on eBay – Wholesalers. This is how the big boys find things to sell on eBay. If you have enough money and enough storage space you can buy pretty much anything in large quantities at a discount, either direct from the manufacturer or from one of the many middlemen that come between them and their final destination.

This method can be intimidating if you’re not accustomed to wheeling and dealing on the phone, but it is possible. The Los Angeles Harbor brings in just about everything that is bought in the U.S. Most manufacturers have wholesale offices near downtown LA that are open for making deals. You can either meet with them in person, or deal with them over the phone. Clothes, toys, electronics, pretty much anything can be bought from these offices.

If you live in LA, going to the wholesale district in person is a great idea, because often the people working in the office are willing to sell you … Selengkapnya

Your monitor outputs the signal it receives to the best of its ability. Your computer outputs as many frames as it can. However, the cable that connects the two together is normally the cheapest piece of junk your monitor manufacturer could find. Even if you bought an aftermarket cable, unless you really did a lot of digging, aftermarket cables are also often really expensive and still pretty terrible.

Each frame is data, 30 frames at 1080p is a lot of data, 60 frames of 1080p is twice as much as 30 frames. Now in part 2 we learned that 4K is four times as many pixels well it is also four times as much data per frame. This can add up to huge amounts of data being sent down the cable connecting your monitor and gaming PC. Your cable is probably not up to the task of transferring 4K video much less supporting higher frame rates.

There are four major types of video cables used in gaming PC’s; VGA, DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort.

VGA is a bare minimum cable incapable of supporting high frame rates and resolutions.

DVI is much more complex with multiple versions of the cable but only the latest versions of it are capable of supporting HD video and frame rates.

HDMI is the most popular type of video cable. It is most commonly found in just one type but there are different types of HDMI connectors but more problematic is that there are now three types of HDMI cables and there is no way to tell them apart. Standard HDMI can’t support HD video, High Speed HDMI can support HD video, and the new HDMI 2.1 or 48G cables can support resolutions up to 10K at 120hz.

DisplayPort is the newest type of cable and is growing rapidly in popularity especially in PC gaming. It has one type of cable and two types of connectors so it is much simpler than other HD capable options. It natively supports 4K video at 120hz.

Now at first glance it seems like you have three good options but hidden problem is that the manufacture of these cables is almost completely unregulated and meeting the minimum specs is the only requirement not the complete specification. So a High Speed HDMI cable may support 1080p but chances are it won’t support 4K because it’s not required to in order to be labelled High Speed. The same thing applies to DVI and DisplayPort cables. Don’t worry though! You don’t need to spend a fortune for cables either. In fact most expensive cables are still bad cables!

Just get your cables from Monoprice.com and you will get the highest quality cables with the highest data transmission rates I can even find for prices cheaper than most cheap cables you can find! I don’t work there I just hate bad cables.

What does this have to do with upgrading to a 4K monitor? You need to have the right cables for the job. Most monitors won’t actually tell you when there is a problem with the cable and you are suffering degraded picture quality or frame rate as a result. So on top of the expensive monitor and the expensive hardware you also need to purchase a good cable all just to slow down your frame rate, make your text drive you crazy and cost you a fortune just for some pixels you probably can’t even see.

A memory card is mainly a small storage medium. It is used to store data such as text, pictures, audio and video. It is mainly used on small, portable and remote computing devices. Memory card is also known as flash memory card. They are also used to store information in computer memory. It is a fact that most of current products use flash memory. Though many new technologies have already been invented, but still flash memory card is most popular among all. Nowadays numbers of memory available in the market. They are SD card (secure digital card), CF card (compact flash card), the Smart Media card, Memory Stick and the Multi Media Card (MMC). These cards are available in different sizes. They are available with different storage capacities. The price of such cards depends upon its storage capacities.

These are powered with non volatile memory. It will help data to remain stable on the card. The advantage of this card is that user is not threatened by loss of power source. It doesn’t need to be refreshed periodically. Since these cards are solid state media and don’t have any moving part, therefore they don’t suffer from mechanical difficulties. These new one are smaller in size, require less space and have higher storage capacity.

However it totally depends upon the user what type of memory card they need for their regular usage. It is a fact that consumption of memory card in increasing day by day. It reflects the requirements of consumers in various fields.

Nowadays many game consoles are making more usage of proprietary solid state memory cards. They are using it for storing data. It appears mainly as a portable hard disk available with superior advantages. Having flash memory technology makes it more durable and reliable when compared to other hard disk drives in market.

Flash memory cards helps in easy transfer of file from one system to another in a seamless manner. With flash memory user can build up their e- libraries. They can store e- books in this card and use it for further references. In this flash memory card one can easily carry different types of utility software. It can be used directly from flash drive. One doesn’t need to install it in computers. More over they have lots of space I it, one can store e cards in it and send to their friend afterward. Thus it is a fabulous gift also. Another important advantage of this is that, they are available in low prices also. So it has got so many benefits for their users.

Although you may already have a number of goal setting strategies in place, I’d like to share another one with you that I recently incorporated into my day. The seed for this article was planted on Oct 29, 2008 while attending the Success Blueprint Workshop put on by Master Certified Coach Andrew Barber-Starkey of the ProCoach Success System. Andrew indicated that one of the best ways to build self confidence and to reach your goals is to always look for ways to “Impress Yourself”.

Impress Yourself Screen Saver

I find “Impress Yourself” to be one of the better motivational quotes I have heard and wanted to have it somewhere highly visible in my everyday life. I thought the best place to put this motto was on my computer monitor as a screen saver. With this creative idea I would be seeing the motivational quote “Impress Yourself” floating across my computer monitor many times over the day. My plan was that this visual aid would remind me of my previous goal setting activities, so I could refocus my efforts and move forward.

The Generation of an Idea

While I found the screen saver to be a powerful technique, this next idea I found to be even more so! I went to Bob Proctor’s weekend seminar “Create Your Own Economy” in May 2009. Both Bob Proctor and Gerry Robert were at this seminar. I find these two entrepreneurs to be great educators and feel inspired and motivated by what they have to say. Fortunately, I was able to obtain a picture of myself with each of these men at this conference. I planned to use these pictures as one of my desktop themes. I knew seeing these pictures on a daily basis would help me in the area of self improvement and motivation.

This presented me with a dilemma. Up to this point, I had been rotating the desktop wallpaper picture on my computer screen on a semi regular basis, generally using my children individually or together at different events or phases of their lives. As I did not think my children would appreciate being displaced from my monitor, I decided to create a simple photo collage of my children and educators.

A Simple Picture Collage

In my first attempt to produce my own free desktop wallpaper featuring my children and educators, I used Microsoft Word. I added the pictures to one page of a Word document and then added the motivational quote “Impress Yourself”. I copied and saved the file in Paint as a .jpg and used it as my computer wallpaper. This simple picture collage inspired me on a daily basis as I saw it every time I was working on the computer.

The Big Picture Collage Idea

Around the same time as I was working on my simple Word collage, my nine year old daughter was making a massive photo collage using PowerPoint. She was pasting numerous pictures onto the same slide and overlapping them. As I watched her create her masterpiece, my mind raced to create one of my own. It became immediately apparent that creating a picture collage in PowerPoint was much faster and easier than using Word. You can easily drag pictures around the slide, arrange their layout as you wish and overlap the pictures.

Building My First Large Photo Collage

For my first large picture collage, I added about 75 pictures to a standard PowerPoint slide, but I soon learned that unless your computer monitor is the same length and width as a standard piece of paper the photo collage will be skewed. I changed the size of my PowerPoint slide to match the exact size of my computer monitor screen, added more pictures, a couple of motivational quotes and saved this picture collage as one of my desktop backgrounds.

For a standard 19″ LCD computer monitor, which has a viewing area of around 180 square inches, I estimate you could be looking at between 75 to 150 pictures instead of just one. My largest picture is about nine square inches while my smallest is about one square inch. You may think that a small picture one square inch in size is too small but I find that this is all you need to prompt yourself. For example, I have a small 1 inch square picture of a multi family house on my picture collage. As soon as I look at this picture, I immediately see and visualize a house I would like to build for low income earners. The rooms are small but it is a home which people can afford and with ownership hopefully comes the building of self esteem. While you may not totally be able to pick out the details in the photo, the purpose of the picture is to trigger your mind to remember your goals. I find pictures of this size address this concept very well.

Personal Goal Setting

I find that there are two major advantages of including your goals in your computer desktop wallpaper. First, all of your past accomplishments and future goals are right in front of you on a daily basis. Seeing what you have already accomplished assures you that you are capable of creating more for yourself. Second, the time required to review your goals in picture format is quite quick. For instance, I have a dream book which contains what I want to accomplish in the future. However, as I am generally under time constraints, I rarely look at my dream book. Yet everyday I am reminded of my goals when I am working on my computer through my computer wallpaper photo collage. In essence, my computer desktop wallpaper has become my vision board as well as my dream book.

Personal growth educators generally want you to review your goals as much as possible. By using this photo collage technique, I have my whole dream book and vision board in front of me every day. I think this is a great goal setting tip and a good self improvement and motivation technique. This simple idea is not only easy to implement but fun to put together. Additionally, it very quickly reminds me of my goals on a daily basis. This gentle reminder tends to stop me from doing things which do not advance me and focus me on what needs to get done to achieve my personal goals.

My Results

One of my main goals is to become a better stock trader. Since viewing the phrase “Impress Yourself” and looking at my photo collage on a daily basis, I have tried very hard to always use extreme discipline when trading stocks. I find I can do this best by controlling risk, always having stops in place and by generally limiting the time I am in the stock market. For me, just a slight shift in mental attitude has improved my ability to trade stocks.

Your Challenge

What small shift in thinking do you need to dramatically change your life around? What goals are you searching for? Can you use this self improvement and motivation technique in your life?

Are you ready to start to build your first picture collage and use this simple idea to inspire you on a daily basis which hopefully will lead you to an improved life? When building your photo collage include the pictures that you think will best motivate you to succeed. You can also include inspiring, motivational quotes to further guide you.

In a picture collage, you can put a large picture on the bottom and then put a number of pictures on top of it. Simply send the large picture to the back. In this manner you can increase the number of pictures on the slide. If you are unsure about how to build a picture collage in PowerPoint or Word I have put the required information on my website.

I hope looking at this type of photo collage on a daily basis is as inspirational to you as it has been for me.

2010; mankind has come a long way since the first discovery of fire a few hundred thousand years ago. Fire used to be a necessity then, now the computer is a necessity for us as we use it in our daily lives.

One way computers help us is in our lives. We use the computer to communicate with people such as web conferencing with friends who are overseas, to look up on information about a particular topic, socialize on social networks such as Facebook or even to do something as simple as sending an email or digital cards to friends and loved ones.

The computer has also managed to change us from reading hard copies of books, magazines and newspapers, to reading online digital documents such as online newspaper articles and e-books.

In education, lecturers are now using PowerPoint to make their lecture slides which are used during their lectures and students are now able to download the lecture slides into their computers and store it as reading documents.

In the working place, paperwork is now slowly converting from manual printing and keeping documents to storing documents in the computer. The problem with paperwork is that it takes up a lot of space and an office has limited space. Moreover, going digital will help the environment as there will be less demand for paper which results in lesser trees being cut down to be made into paper.

However, there have been some issues raised about digital documents. A digital document can be created and edited by anyone, thus this leads to the owner verification problem. It is dangerous in the working environment, because anyone can edit a contract or agreement after it has been signed and used it against the other party. Another problem would be if one accidentally deletes the document, it will be hard to trace the perpetrator and also very hard to retrace the document.

The New Year has not started out very well for Yours Truly. After the first day of the new year, my life went south for the rest of the winter. All I can say is, I hope it has a wonderful winter, and do not forget to write.

Speaking of writing, I can sum up my feelings at this moment by saying, "I hate my computer."

Perhaps, you may think the word "hate" a little too strong. Under normal circumstances, I would agree wholeheartedly. These, however, are not normal circumstances by a long shot.

And, believe me, I've been tempted to do some shooting.

Usually, I'm good-natured, and easily get along with everyone around me. I go out of my way to be nice and courteous to people.

At the grocery store, I always hold the door open for people; On the highway, I always yield to the other driver, without employing hand gestures; And in a restaurant, I always smile at the waitress, no matter how much she messes up my order.

However, everything and everyone has a limit – and I have reached my limit in this matter. The new near has barely gotten underway and already a snag has raised its ugly head in my direction and grinned. And boy, do I despise that grin.

This snag, to put it mildly, has to do with my computer. Oh, how I miss my old typewriter at times. It was such a faithful companion to me in my work. Rarely did it disappoint me or let me down. It always responds to the slightest touch of my fingers.

Then the sad day came when I traded my old reliable typewriter in for a computer. At the time, I thought I had upgraded into heaven. I did not know I was setting myself up for a crash. How could I? Everyone told me a computer would solve all my problems.

In the beginning, it hauled me into a false sense of competency. It actually made me believe I was in control of my computer. And, for a while, it looked like I was.

This past week I was working on several projects. With my computer, I can have three projects open at the same time and work on them simultaniously. I was working on my Sunday sermon, my weekly column and a fantastic article I was writing for a magazine.

I was in high heaven, going from one project to another and making wonderful progress. In fact, I was having such a great time that I forgot to save any of my work.

Several times during my work that afternoon I heard a mischievous snicker coming from somewhere, but I was having too much fun to pay attention to it. In hindsight, I should have stopped right there and pondered the situation.

The sermon I was working on was simply wonderful. I can never remember being in greater sermonic form. Everything just appeared to flow. The ideas opened up right before my eyes, which truly delided me.

I could not wait to preach this sermon come Sunday morning. I was quite sure my congration would have been delighted with this masterpiece.

When the ideas slowed in the sermon preparation, I simply jumped over to the weekly column and began working on it. Like the sermon, the column was going fantastic. I could not believe the roll I was on at the time.

There are times when you know what you're doing is good. Then there are times when you know what you're doing is great. I had never had a column come together so smoothly and quickly as this one. My readers will be awed with such eloquence.

When I was stuck on my column, I switched over to the magazine article I was writing. In a few moments, I was completely emerging in writing the article. Like the sermon and column before it, the article unfolded before me like a rose in June. I luxuriated in the aroma of greatness.

By this time, I was feeling pretty good about myself. This should have been a flashing red light for me. In my defense, I was assuming the new year bought new rules for me.

I've given it an awful lot of thought; I do not know what happened next.

But, evidently, I pressed a button I should not have pressed. In the next second, my computer shut off completely. For several minutes, I just stared, dumbfounded, at my blank computer screen – one blank to another.

When I came to my senses, I restored my computer. No matter how diligently I searched, those three files were nowhere to be found. The question plaguing my tortured mind was, do files that are not saved go to hell? They were certainly not on my computer.

The thing bothering me the most was, I could not remember the details of my sermon, my column, or the terrific article I was writing. It was as if my magnificent trio did not exist.

In pondering my quandary, a scripture verse came to mind. "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed let he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with The temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. " (1 Corinthians 10: 12-13 KJV.)

No matter how difficult my life seems, Jesus is the "escape key" that enables me to endure.

Video can be used to attract new clients and customers, or build subscribers for an upcoming campaign. It is also great for introduction to you and your style of business. It can begin building a trust relationship before they ever purchase the first item.

Although YouTube is video, you want to think of it as any other type of sales copy that you would write. Starting with the title of your video. It needs to be treated as a headline. Your video title needs to catch the attention of potential viewers, yet still be related to the content in the video.

Once you have your viewers attention it is a good idea to let them know exactly what they will receive for watching your video. If you have an offer or free gift at the end of the video, mention it at the beginning.

Also, place the link to your squeeze page or web site at the start and end of the video as well as a couple of times during the video. You can place the URL a little way from the top or bottom of the screen, but not directly in the middle, to get more attention.

You want a clear call to action in your video. Are you wanting them to click through to your web site? Take you up on a free offer? Call for a consultation? You have to let the viewer know what you want them to do.

Even though the links in the video itself will not be click-able, You Tube places the description of your video directly below the viewing screen, so you might want to let viewers know that they can click through the link below or cut and paste It into theirs browser.

Another bit of advice on your video description, make sure you say everything you can about the video. It could be several hundred words long if you need it to be. The reason you need long video descriptions is that the bots or spiders have no way to search the video itself, but they can crawl the description. So include important and relevant words in your description as well as your URL.

Lastly a little about keywords. The more relevant key words the better. Use multiple single keywords or a keyword phrases. YouTube looks for videos with similar keywords to put in the list of suggested videos. So yours could come up as a related video, even if they were not searching for you in the first place.

The “Red Screen Of Death” is an error that mainly appears in Windows XP & Vista. It was phased out in Windows 7 but is still a big problem for many people around the world. This tutorial is going to show you how to fix this problem for good.

The red screen error is what’s known as a ‘fatal’ error that is developed by Windows when something seriously bad happens. Like its counterpart – the “blue screen of death” – the red error makes Windows restart instantaneously and can make you lose your programs and other data. The error is typically reserved for “boot loader” issues inside Windows Vista.

The first thing you need to do to fix this error is to see if you can boot up Windows. If you cannot boot up Windows, then the likelihood is that the “boot loader” is broken and you should fix it by reinstalling your system. This can be done (in simple terms) by putting the installation disk into the CD drive and then booting from it. You should perform a fresh install which should replace all the damaged files that could be causing this issue.

If you find that you’re able to boot up Windows, then you should boot into “Safe Mode”. To do this, press F8 before Windows has began to load up, and then select “Safe Mode” from the options you are presented with. Loading into safe mode will give you a good indication of whether the problem is a software or hardware issue. It basically runs Windows down to the bare-bones, meaning that if you try and use it and it crashes, your PC is likely suffering from a hardware issue. If you load up safe mode, and it crashes, then you should try reinstalling Windows… and if it does the same thing then, you’ve got some faulty hard ware and it should be taken to the store.

If your computer does not crash in safe mode, then there’s going to be a software issue which is causing the red screen of death. To fix this, you should open up a “registry cleaner” tool which can be downloaded off the Internet. This is a software program which scans through your system and removes any damaged or corrupted files that are inside it. One of the main reasons why the Red Screen Of Death appears is because some of the vital Windows files that your system needs become corrupted. To fix this, you should let the registry cleaner scan your system and remove any of the damaged files that can cause the red error.

Ergonomic keyboards are specially designed computer keyboards with an aim to reduce stress on your wrists and forearms while typing. They have been around for quite some time now, and its been proven that the special contour designs of these keyboards are definitely worth the trouble.

A common ergonomic keyboard design is one where the keyboards seems to be split in half, and each half is positioned on an angle to match the shape of your wrists when typing.

If you use a computer frequently, and especially if you do a lot of typing, you’ll want to make sure you are comfortable with your keyboard. And so, buying an ergonomic computer keyboard would be a great investment for you. You’ll save your hands, forearms and wrists from discomfort, making you more productive and allowing you to work for longer periods of time.

Also, if you’ve ever experienced pain in your hands, wrists or forearms associated with using your keyboard in the past, you will want to consider dumping your old keyboard and buying an ergonomic one to save you from the pain.

If your use of the computer doesn’t include extensive keyboard work, you might not see the full benefits from an ergonomic keyboard. Although, I would still recommend an ergonomic keyboard for all computer users, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Buying an ergonomic keyboard is a great investment that will save you in the long run.

A Decision Support System is an integrated set of computer tools allowing a decision maker to interact directly with computer to retrieve information useful in making semi structured and unstructured decisions. Example of this decisions include such things as merger and acquisition decisions, plant expansion, new product decisions portfolio management and marketing decisions.

Decision making is a fundamental managerial activity. It may be conceptualized as consisting of four stages: intelligence, design, choice and implementation.

Important aspects of the Decision Support System:

1) The most important consideration is the Decision Support System’s ease of use – its ability to allow non -technical people to deal with it directly. The single greatest and most enduring problem with computers has been their inflexibility, their inability to let the person who actually needs the data to deal directly with the computer.

2) The ability to access information should not be restricted to only the part of an organization or to only certain managerial or professional groups. Instead the resource should be distributed to all of the people and part of an organization needing it without widespread access; the power of advanced Distributed Processing System will go untapped as they typically have in the past.

3) The ideal Decision Support System in sharp contrast to previous method of designing applications should not be a ‘system’ at all in the strict sense of the term. Rather, it should be a highly adaptive decision support generator that can easily be used by professionals to quickly design data support prototypes suited to each specific decision-making task. This adaptive tool must allow quick design changes if the original design does not closely match a person’s information gathering style or needs.

4) To adequately support the human element, this highly adaptive support capability must be able to provide access to operational data and as well as to summary data that already has been processed by application programs designed for other specific operational tasks. Equally important this tool must provide the professional with access to an organization’s raw data and it must allow the access to be accomplished in one step using a single uncomplicated procedure or command and without having to re-key non summary data.

5) The organizations need to access original data sometimes because efficiency is related to how well the original data is organized in the system; the Decision Support Generator should be able to interface with a true DBMS. It should also be able to access standard ‘flat’ files indirectly using the power of the host computer to facilitate both the user interface and data access without changing existing files.

6) The Decision Support Generator should let the user decide whether information should be displayed on the CRT screen for immediate use or whether it should be printed for later use. The best way to accomplish such flexible data presentation is through a work station. The management or professional information workstation would incorporate a keyboard, display screen and an interface to a printer which could print everything from straight text to graphics like pie charts, bar charts and line charts.

7) The support tool must interface with several different systems and capabilities, it must be compatible with all of them, the tool must provide users with a single easily used language to access manipulate and present data in a way that will best support the end-user.

8) To facilitate formatting and manipulating displayed data, the decision support generator should ideally be able to interface with word processing software. With this capability, the DSS becomes the critical link between data processing and office automation, integrating both functions in an easily-used, straight forward, extremely powerful system.

Decision making characteristics in the Global Business Environment:

Business Strategy/Decision Making Characteristics

Multinational: (decentralized federation) Decision making decentralized to subsidiaries, informal relationships between head quarters and subsidiaries

International: (coordinated federation) More vital decision and knowledge in general developed at head quarters and transferred to subsidiaries

Global: (centralized federation) Decisions made at the center knowledge developed and retained at the center

The daily work of a manager, as hundreds of brief activities of great variety, requiring rapid shifts of attention from one issue to another, very often initiated by emerging problems. A manager maintains a complex web of contacts outside and inside of the organization. A successful manager is not swamped by onslaught of these activities: he or she maintains a personal agenda. Effective manager carve out as it were, their own informal structure within the corporate structure and they use this network to keep themselves informed and influence others. It has been absorbed that proactive manager make special efforts to develop a long-term view and long-term agenda.

The need for types of information produced by decision support system has always been present. Decision support systems have become popular primarily because of their capability to fill this need. Nowadays availability of the computer hardware, the advent of the Database Management System in the 1970’s provided means for storage and management of large amount of data, large increase in number of software packages incorporating the functions of a decision support system. Finally many MBAs who were trained analytic techniques are now reaching the middle and upper levels of corporations .These individuals know how to use the tools that decision support system provide. So in most of the organization, managers used the computer based Data processing applications. This leads to develop the decision support system in business world.

A widely held notion is that modern decision -making is a highly structured process. According to this view, management makes decisions by gathering and analyzing all the relevant information, reviewing all possible alternatives and then calmly and rationally choosing the course of action that provides maximum benefits at minimal risk.

Managers play three types of roles in carrying out their functions. Interpersonal roles are mainly based on face-to-face interactions; through in some cases computerized communications media may be employed. Informational and decision roles are supported by variety of information system, which make information available, assist in decision making and serve as means of communication.

All the managerial roles have an element of decision making: the decision roles are the ones where this is the crucial aspect. The manager brings together resources in a novel way. Decision support system assists an entrepreneur in considering options, selecting one and planning for its implementation. Handling disturbances is a part of managerial control. Resource allocation is the essence of planning and decision support systems have become indispensable in many organizations for their purpose.

The manager is a problem solver, and the fundamental activity in problem solving is decision making. Decision making is the process of identifying a problem, developing alternative solution and choosing and implementing one of them. An experienced manager recognizes a problem as similar to one he or she has already encountered. The intuitive grasp of a problem most often relies on such an ability to establish an analogy. The systems approach to problem solving helps to manage complexity.

Decision support system in the organizational environment:

Organizations that have been the most successful in the implementing DSS have much in common. They have well established, well controlled and well structured data processing system which provides transaction processing data necessary for DSS. Such organizations have spent extra money and personnel necessary to maintain a research and development focus. All the departments in the organization have communicated with central groups of computer. The entire departments have sufficient confidence to initiate and manage systems projects. The central computer groups have several people on its staff that either came from all other departments’. Education and training programs are used by the organizations to build mutual understanding between departments and the computer group.

Capabilities offered by DSS:

1) Support decision making in ill-structured situations- in which ,precisely owing to the lack of structure, problem do not lend themselves to full computerization, and yet require computer assistance for access to and processing of voluminous amount of data.

2) Help to rapidly obtain quantities results needed to reach the decision.

3) Operate the ad hoc mode to suit the current needs of the user, as opposed to operating in a generally scheduled fashion as management reporting system do.

4) Support various stages of the decision making process.

5) Foster high-quality decision making by encouraging decisions based on the integration of available information and human judgment.

6) Offer flexibility as opposed to a preordained pattern of use – making it easy to accommodate the particular decision making style of an individuals.

7) Facilitate the implementation of the decisions which frequently cut across department boundaries.

8) Support group decision making particularly through group DSS (GDSS).

9) Give managers the opportunity to gain a better understanding for their business by developing and working with models.

Conclusion:

With in the past several years, `computers have been used increasingly in areas of financial management, production analysis, short-term planning and geographical analysis.Today’s business worlds, … Selengkapnya

There are so many strategy games for both on line and for game consoles. In today’s games, there isn’t a need to set the setting of the strategy games for half an hour as the programmers had already figured out what actually the gamer needs and had already been programmed into the game.

Most of the strategy games I played needed lots of planning and speed to play well in the strategy games. These games can be those defense games where you need to build towers at strategic areas or points to fight off an invasion effectively or if you are those kind of offensive players, you can be the one building units to crush the computer’s defense.

There is a saying:” Attack is my defense, defense is my attack”. It really depends on how you want to play it.

6 Simple Strategy Techniques For Playing Strategy Games

1) Knowing in depth of the different kinds of units or races in the game. Normally it isn’t going to be more than 10.

2) Follow the basic rules of the strategy game. Some basics strategies are: Use the melee fighters upfront in the front lines as “meat shield” while the ranged soldiers stand behind the melee fighters to support them.

3) When you have gained enough money, do plan some of it for upgrades of your soldiers, towers etc… Normally starting of the game, it can be quite hard to plan but plan out a strategy of your own.

4) Pick up some air units to support your ground troops. It is a must! Next go get a good siege weapon to destroy building more effectively and faster. Siege weapons are a double edged weapon where it can be used for base defense too. By understanding what does what, you will be in a better position to really deploy them well and avoid stupid mistakes.

5) Pay attention to powered attacks too. It is normally in the form of artillery strike with a huge amount of ground troops charging at you, distracting you and using the siege weapons clearing out your base buildings. Use your air units to flank the siege weapons, counter attack them and surprise your enemy.

6) Last tip is to make sure that you don’t save necessary money that is not necessary. This is a common mistake that new gamers make. There is no point in saving so much money in the game and lose in the end and to prove nothing. But if you are going to build massive or very grand, then just do it. Strike a good balance point between having some savings for defense when needed. You will have to learn this in regards to each specific game.

When I started building, I, like a lot of beginners, would spend time and money purchasing land and/or house plans only to find out later (sometimes, sadly, in the middle of construction) that I had made a terrible mistake. Either I had purchased the wrong location or I was forced to incur costs that I had not planned on or I couldn’t afford to build the home based on the plans I had purchased.

To minimize the money and time I would lose up front, I’ve learned to do “preliminary planning.” In this lesson, you’ll find out how to answer the most important question to start the ball rolling, “What size home can you afford to build?” Once you know this, you can now begin the process of purchasing the “right lot” and the “right set of house plans.”

A. What Size Home Should You Build

Before you purchase a lot or a set of house plans, you must first determine the size of home you can afford to build.

1. What Can You Afford?

To determine the size home you can afford to build you must determine how much money you can borrow, how much money you can (or want to) pay per month, decide what to include in your loan then determine the cost to build per square foot in your area.

a. Pre-Qualifying for a loan

You need to acquire this number by contacting a mortgage broker in your area or over the Internet. If you do not know a mortgage broker in your area, ask your current banker whom they recommend for a permanent loan. More than likely, your bank will have a mortgage department and they’ll want your business.

Provide the mortgage broker with the necessary information to find out the actual amount you can pre-qualify for. The lender should not charge you any money to pre-qualify you for a loan.

If you have a problem qualifying for a loan because of income, bruises on your credit or because you’ve recently changed jobs, find out what is causing the problem. Many problems can be repaired in 6 to 12 months. If you are turned down, go to another mortgage broker. Because of the variety of loans available on today’s market, another lender may still approve a customer that has been turned down. If you do have some credit issues, find a mortgage broker that specializes in dealing with credit problems. I’ve noticed that mortgage brokers that only deal with the (easy) good credit customers will not know how to work with someone who has had problems.

2. What Amount Can You Or Do You Want To Pay Per Month?

When you determine how much you can qualify for per month, you need to decide the amount you are willing to pay per month. When you’ve decided on this amount, you need to determine how much of this monthly payment will go toward property taxes and hazard insurance. The remaining balance is what you’ll have available to pay toward principal and interest.

3. What Should Be Included In The Loan

You should plan ahead so that your loan amount will cover every necessary expense from lender fees to costs for material, labor, subcontractors and overhead.

Up to this point you haven’t spent any money. Now you may need to spend a little money. I recommend you obtain a current copy of R.S. Mean’s Residential Cost Data. You can buy this manual online or you may find a copy at your local public library. Most of what you need will be found in the first chapter.

Honestly fill in the data concerning the style and quality of home you want to build. Means will explain how to determine the quality. Then add to the base home any additions, such as a deck an extra bathroom and/or a driveway. Then use the “location factor” for your area. [A home will cost more to build in San Francisco, California than Atlanta, Georgia] You will be amazed at how close this estimated cost to build your home will be to the actual cost.

I’ve heard so many builders say, “There is no way the home I’m building will cost this much”, only to be shocked when they see the actual cost upon completion.

If I were shopping for a builder, I would want to know this figure just to know if the builder was charging too much or grossly underestimating the cost of the home. Under estimating the cost creates more problems than over estimating the cost.

4. What Size Home Can You Afford?

Therefore, for example purposes, let’s assume the following: you are able to borrow $194,504.00 (based on your projected monthly mortgage amount), less lender fees of $16,046.00 and cost additions of $41,378.00, you will actually have $137,080.00 from which to calculate the final square footage that you can build. Based on $67.24 per square foot, you will be able to build a 2,038 square foot home.

Total Loan = $194,504.00

Less:

Lender Fees = – 16,046.00

Additions = – 41,378.00

Balance = $137,080.00

Square Feet = 2,038 ($137,080.00/$67.24)

Food for thought: You could have included anything you wanted in the loan. You could have included dining room furniture, a washer and dryer, or a trip to Europe. You decide. But any additional inclusions will ultimately decrease the square footage of the home you want to build.

WARNING: You would not believe the number of individuals, including builders that will go through this simple arithmetic, purchase a 2,000 square foot house plan, borrow $194,504.00 and start building away!!

When you purchase the plans, you’d still better not dare borrow money and start building before first determining what the actual cost is going to be. Our calculations are nothing more than a guesstimate.

Because it’s easier to design a home for a given lot rather than find a lot to fit a given set of house plans, I recommend you next move should be to “find a lot”.

If you own or are thinking to own a business online or offline, I suggest you read along. This is something that interests you. If you are not using the principles of "List Building", you are making your business a lot harder than what it should be.

If you have or have not heard of this term, I will tell you exactly in the following paragraphs.

The first thing I did was jump into Google and make a search on "List Building Definition." However, not to my surprise, nothing relevant came up!

Seriously, I could not believe it! A key process, probably the only process that matters the most when it comes to online marketing does not have a clear definition. It is pretty much named everywhere among Internet Marketers! No wonder why everyone is so confused.

So, given I did not find what I was looking for, I changed my search to "What is list building". Somehow, I got a definition from Wikipedia. Although it is not a reliable source, Wikipedia is a good starting point. Here's what I found:

"(List builder) A list builder, also known as a dual list, dual list box, disjoint list box, list shuttle, shuttle, swap list and two sided multi-select is a graphical user interface element in which a user can select a Set of text values ​​by moving values ​​between two list boxes … "(You can read the rest if you want on Wikipedia? HINT: This is not List Building)

Well, I was not any closer to getting the definition that I needed, but on this same search I found an article from Derek Halpern that definitely helps on understanding why everyone must do it. The article basically tells you that if you are not doing list building, you are an idiot. By the end of this article, you can draw your own conclusion about this statement.

It also somehow told me what to do but it did not tell me what List Building really is, so I decided to explain it myself. To make it very clear, let's dissect the concept in two parts: List and Building.

List

In the internet marketing jargon, it reflects to a list of prospects that you can contact multiple times until they unsubscribe from that particular list. The components of this list are email addresses that people entered on a form.

Building

As its definition, building refers to the act of making something. In this case, we are referring to the list. Building is the process of getting email addresses into the list.

Converting visitors / users / seekers into subscribers and followers is the essence of building a list. The user / visitor has 100% control on their decision to opt-in or out to that list. Normally, users / visitors will enter their email address in exchange for a gift or give away.

After reading several paragraphs, you might already have an idea on you head of what list building is, but give me the chance to give you a better definition.

"List Building is the process of getting people to enter their email address into a form strategically placed on your website normally in exchange for a gift."

Now you know what list building is. We are getting there, but you still need to know an acceptable reason why you need to know this.

The list is an asset and probably the most important asset for you business.

Why do you need to do List Building?

Let me give you an example. Imagine you go to a restaurant, you have dinner, you pay, and you leave. How many times do they ask you if you want to leave your personal details or your email address?

Not many, right? This is a clear example of people getting listing building wrong. It's precisely the same process for people to come to your website and leave.

Read carefully and with understanding. When you leave the restaurant, chances are they may come back if there is a good service, the food is good, and it has a good environment. You may even recommend the restaurant to your friends.

Now, everything is fine so far, and then the restaurant owner must be pleased because there would be the chance of them to return (if they did all the above right).

Think about it. After you leave, the restaurant owner has no way to contact you later on, follow up with a survey, send you an offer, or a simple thank you card. Can you see the problem here?

If you can not see anything wrong, it's fine. I am actually here to tell you what is terrible wrong here and how you can get it right. After this, you may start enjoying having more returning customers and visitors on your online or offline business.

Now looking at the statistics, it is six times harder to please new customers than loyal customers (BizGrader.com). How can you create loyal customers? Getting them to sign up a form with their email address. Yes, exactly.

Using the principles of list building, you will not just please more customers with less effort, but also spend less money on your overall marketing efforts. This is proven and in the case of restaurants where only email subscribers purchased 17% more than those who were not on their email list (Forrester Research).

Simply imagine, if this is the case of a restaurant that has a minimum online presence, what would this do to your online based business?

Can you see now what was wrong with our example? When a visitor comes to your website / business and you do not have a way for them to leave their details, they will leave and you will have no way to contact them EVER again.

This is why I was saying that The List is an asset. List Building is the only way for you to follow-up and create a connection with your audience and customers.

Now you know why List Building is critical for your business. Before I tell you how to implement its principles, let me add something to our previous list building definition:

"List Building is the process of getting people to enter their email address into a form strategically placed on your website normally in exchange of a gift with the aim of building a loyal customer base, add value and sell products with less effort."

Your email subscribers list is an asset for your offline or online business. Why? It contains the list of previous customer and potential customers that you can contact in a matter of minutes (if not seconds) directly to their email inbox.

If you are already doing an online business, but have not started your list, I hope you are convinced now of beginning the process. If you are an offline business, I suggest you think about this as well.

If you have something to think about before getting started, you definitely did not understand the concept. I would encourage you to read this post again before proceeding to the next paragraphs.

If you are ready, keep on reading because the following paragraphs will tell you how to do list building. You can start enjoying more free time to focus on other parts of your business instead of doing the hard sell and chasing customers.

How to Get Started on List Building

Start from day one. However, if you have been online or you have an online business and you have not yet started, you do not need to worry. You can start in a matter of minutes. All you need is to understand the system required to do this.

To build your list, you simply need an Email Autoresponder service.

As I mentioned before, the emails are captured in a list using a form. Once captured, they are stored in a database from which you will be able to send emails with a few clicks.

An email autoresponder service will provide you all the necessary tools to create and maintain your list, form creation, email list storage, and send emails at any time to all your contacts.

There are multiple service providers out there that provide a similar service. The difference usually comes down to the cost and possible integrations that you would want to use.

I personally use Aweber. This autoresponder provides satisfying service and tools. It is very easy to integrate with your website and other systems.

Aweber is easily scalable. It grows with your business and you can create unlimited lists. Although, I would suggest you start with one list and then start creating sublists. Afterwards, use them to segment your market as per your business requires. You can also separate loyal customers from prospects or by products.

Of course, you desire to know what's going on with the emails you are sending out. You want to receive feedback on what is working and what is not. Keep an eye on two main statistics – … Selengkapnya

If your computer has blue screen errors on windows start up there can be several reasons for this. This is a serious system error and if it is not fixed your system can end up with serious corruption or worse it may not even start up at all.

Here are some causes of this error.

# 1 Incorrect drivers are installed. # 2 The windows registry is corrupt. # 3 The boot record or MBR as it is called is corrupt or infected with malware. # 4 A program or a device you just installed is causing your PC to crash.

Here are the steps you to need to take to verify this and to stop your PC crashing on you.

A) If you have just installed or updated drivers remove them or roll back to the previous version. To check there are no problems with drivers do the following.

# 1 Click start. # 2 Right click on my computer on the start menu. Go to properties and then click on device manager. # 3 If you find any device with a yellow exclamation mark uninstall the drivers and install the latest drivers or roll back to older drivers.

B) Repair corrupt registry entries. This is probably the largest cause of blue screen errors on windows start up. Here is how to do this.

# 1 Download a system ad registry scanner. # 2 Run a full system scan on your computer and fix all the problems automatically. # 3 Restart your PC.

C) Corrupt boot record.

If The boot record is corrupt you need to fix it immediately Or you may end up with an inoperable PC. How do you know if this is corrupt? You will usually receive a message saying there is a problem with the master boot record.

If you see this you should first of all scan your computer for viruses, then run check disk on your hard drive in case there are bad sectors where important data is stored. To run this go to the windows start menu then run and type in "chkdsk / f" without the quotes. A box will appear. Press y to check your computer on restart. If this does not fix the error run a scan with a system and registry scanner to fix the problem and get rid of blue screen errors on windows start up. This is better than having to reinstall windows. All you need to do is to follow these steps here to fix your PC quickly and fix blue screen errors on windows start up.

Are you looking for a computer book to improve your computer programming skills or general IT knowledge?

A distinguishing mark of professionals is that they keep up-to-date with the newest ideas, techniques and developments in their field. If you are a computer professional you should read every computer book and computer eBook which can help you to improve your computer skills.

You can find good Computer Books and eBooks on the Internet. Some of them can be purchased online, whereas other ones are free and can be easily downloaded.

Purchasing Computer Books

There are many online Book stores, which sell Computer Books and Computer Ebooks and the most famous one is certainly Amazon. They have search facilities which allow to find what you are looking for in a way that is certainly easier and faster than searching in a main street bookstore.

You can select a category from a menu (eg Databases, Programming, Linux and Unix, AS / 400) or use the search facilities to find Books or Software in your area of ​​interest.

If you browse some computer book among the possible choices, you will typically find a good product description which often includes the table of contents and, in many cases, you will find also reviews submitted by people who have read the book. Often there is also an average customer review which can be useful to decide if the purchase is worthwhile.

If you decide to buy, you can easily add your choices to a shopping cart and pay online by using a Credit or Debit Card. The Books are usually delivered from the Online Bookstore pretty fast.

Free Programming E-Books

There are many good Computer Ebooks, often published in PDF format, with plenty of useful information.

Some of them are free downloadable Ebooks whereas other ones (especially computer tutorials) can read online.

Computer manufacturers, such as IBM, often allow to access an online library of their technical documentation and often provide good computer tutorials (visit for example the site Developer Works).

An author which offers online many free downloadable ebooks is Bruce Eckel. His company provides public and private training and consulting services and he has decided to offer the FREE downloadable eBook version of many good Programming books, which are also sold in Book stores in the printed format.

Bruce Eckel has published over 150 articles and several computer books such as Thinking in Java (Prentice-Hall, 1998, 2nd Edition, 2000), the Hands-On Java Seminar CD ROM (available on his Mind View site and enclosed to the previous book ), Thinking in C ++> / b> (PH 1995; 2nd edition 2000), C ++ Inside & Out (Osborne / McGraw-Hill 1993), among others.

He's given hundreds of presentations throughout the world, published over 150 articles in numerous magazines, was a founding member of the ANSI / ISO C ++ committee, speaks regularly at conferences and is the C ++ and Java track chair for the Software Development conference. It provides public and private seminars and design consulting in C ++, Java and Python.

His books can be purchased in Book stores, but previous versions can also be easily downloaded as Ebooks and are certainly very useful to Computer professionals.

Conclusion

If you want to improve your computer knowledge, try the Internet as a valid alternative to traditional Bookshops and Libraries.

One of the highest quality names in grills is Fire Magic. This company offers a full line of both cart type and built in grills for outdoor kitchens. There are some things to remember when considering purchasing a grill, particularly a high quality grill that is going to cost a fair bit of money.

First, if you are looking for a stainless steel grill, make sure you are dealing with 304 stainless steel grills. This is the grade of stainless that will not rust. These grills are warranted for life against rust and the reason the manufacturers can give you this warranty is because the type of steel they use simply will not accept rust on its surface.

All Fire Magic grills are made with 304 stainless, so rust is something you will not have to worry about. There are 3 lines of grills put out by this company. The main two lines are the Aurora and Echelon. The Aurora is sort of the base line version of the Echelon, although both grills start out with the same steel body. What accessories and features you want will determine which line of grills you decide to choose from.

The things the Echelon has standard that the Aurora does not have a smoker burner, lights inside the grill, separate heat zones, and a standard rotisserie package. You can get the rotisserie package as an option on an Aurora, but if you have a need for any of those other things you will want to go with the Echelon grill.

One of the nice things about the variety that Fire Magic offers is the varying sizes available. Not only are there varying widths of grill available, but this brand is available in different depths front to back. This can be very important when planning an outdoor kitchen because if you can have a shower cabinet you may be able to squeeze all the items on your wish list into the plan. If you area is very tight on space and you are only dealing with full depth grills, you may end up sacrificing something from that list.

With all the variations and options available, there is no doubt that you can find a fire Magic built in grill to suit both your budget and your needs.

Microtechnology has continued to power the new laptop revolution that continues to sweep business and personal computing. This has led to an overall performance of computers as more people make the move to abandon their old desktop PC in favor of new laptops. This has resulted in laptops experiencing a surge in overall sales as more people transition in that direction.

Examining laptop computers

Laptops have taken the world of computing by storm. This is because of the general convenience that they bring. Regular desktop PCs are not about to go anywhere although they have been characterized by being static and hence ineffficient. People who intend to complete their tasks while on the move and not being tied to a specific location have turned to laptops in droves. This is because laptops pack the same power as a desktop PC (and even more) while delivering mobility and convenience. They are also battery-powered which means that one is not limited to their office or home desk in order to perform tasks.

Looking at pros and cons

Laptops have numerous inherent advantages. As we have mentioned, one of them is their ease of mobility. Computing can be done whether one is sitting at their home or wherever out on the road. They are also powerful meaning they are capable to handle most of the programs that are available with regular computers. Wi-fi capability via wireless cards enable access to the Internet regardless of location. This allows for maximum productivity.

Let us examine a few disadvantages. One of them is the price. Laptops, while being smaller than their desktop counterparts, are much more expensive. Higher-end laptops can range anywhere from $ 2000 and above while one can get a high-end desktop for much less. They also come with vastly less storage space than a regular PC. Most desks can pack up to 300GB of hard disk space. This has not been achieved by laptops due to their diminitive size. Most laptops carry approximately 160BG of space. Even more come with much less. This means media fans who store music and videos are bound to be disappointed.

What do you look for when buying a laptop?

It is recommended that you read the specifics of the laptop before you buy. It is also good to ask yourself what the laptop will be primarily used for. If you are simply surfing the Internet and sending and reading emails, then a regular low-end laptop running anywhere between $ 300 and $ 500 will suffice. If you are into media such as video and music downloads, gaming and graphics design, then you need to invest in a laptop that has more memory and hard disk space. This can run you upwards of $ 600. There are many places where you can shop and review the specifics of each laptop in order to match it with your exact needs.

Difference in brands and laptop types

There are many laptop manufacturers and the competition is fierce. The most popular brands name manufacturers are Dell, HP / Compaq, Acer, ASUS, Sony, Fujitsu, Apple and Lenovo. Many of these makers have units that can fit into any computing need. Some laptops include standard multipurpose laptops that are ideal for home use or on the go and business oriented laptops that have rugged designs for data security and coupled with a special operating system for business use. There are even gaming laptops that have powerful video chips and high processor clock speeds.

How much do they cost?

Laptops were once quite expensive but new technology has changed this. While there are still laptops that cost upwards of $ 2000, it is now quite possible to get one for less than $ 500. This could be a basic laptop that can be used to perform most of the everyday computing tasks. High-end laptops still cost more than $ 1000.

Where to buy one

Most electronic stores sell laptops from the major manufacturers such as Dell, Apple, Acer, Sony and Toshiba. One can also buy laptops at these manufacturers' websites. Other sources include places like eBay, uBIID, Craigslist and other third party vendors.